Smooth-On Starter Kits

Welcome to the world of mold making and casting! These Starter Kits from Smooth-On give you step by step print and video instructions, plus all the materials you need to get started.

These kits are great for artists, inventors, candle makers, arts and crafts enthusiasts, and resin jewelry makers.

Note — The shelf life of Smooth-On liquid rubber and liquid plastic compounds is drastically reduced after opening. Remaining product should be used as soon as possible. Replace the lids on both containers immediately after dispensing to prolong the shelf life of the unused product.

Pourable Kit — Intended for smaller, flat or two dimensional pieces. Includes Oomoo Molding Rubber, Smooth-Cast 300 Casting Resin, Superseal, Ease Release 205 Release Agent, a How To Booklet, a How To DVD, and a Quick Start Guide.

Properly stored at room temperature (73°F/ 23°C), silicone rubber will have a shelf life of 6 months. After the six months the catalysts in the material have basically become inactive. Also, it's important to know that elevated temperatures will drastically reduce the shelf life of silicone rubber.

The price of this product compared to similar, competitive alternatives is:

A solid value

Bottom LineYes, I would recommend this to a friend

Merchant response: Thank you for providing us the information regarding shelf life on the silicone rubber. This manufacturer uses the same box for the Urethane and Silicone Rubber products and therefore does not list the shelf life on the box. We will, however, update our website with this additional information.

First, I have to say that this is a great product and a fantastic deal. Nothing against the Smooth-on quality. I love the kit because it comes with everything you need for a small production of 1-2 little medallions or small projects etc. HOWEVER keep in mind these kits expire within about a year.

I recevied 3 kits as a gift for Christmas one year (from 3 different people). I used most of the one kit with no issues but the other 2 completely expired within about a year. And the resin I was using from the first kit started taking longer and longer to cure later in the year until it got chucked with the other two when I descovered the expiration.

I kept these in my home, teperature controlled so it just has a very poor shelf life..even if unopened. When I went to open one of the silicone parts of kit #2, it was completely solid in the bottle and it was unporable, therefore couldn't be mixed with the other part. Thinking it was maybe just a fluke and I got a bad batch, I checked kit #3...same issue. :( Shame.

Overall, I reccomend only buying the kit (or any batch of smooth-on products) when you're ready to cast and only order the amount you will need. These will not store well.

Considering what you get for the price, this kit isn't bad. However, if you plan on casting multiple copies, and by multiple I mean more than 5, look elsewhere.

I bought this kid as a casting virgin. The silicone pour went great; perfect, even. Everything worked well, there were no air bubbles, the mold was flawless.

The problems began with the resin. The first two pours were completely air bubble filled, but, that is my problem, not the resin's, I'll admit that. There was a problem, however, with the high pour. This resin is incapable of being poured high, leaving loads of air bubbles needing to be broke up with a shot of canned air before it began to gel.

Once I started getting in the groove of things with the 3rd and 4th castings I was confident that from then on out it would be smooth sailing.

Then, the mold started to deteriorate... and quickly. On the 5th poor using plenty of mold release the silicone began to break down and pieces were missing in the resin casts.

I would not recommend this for anyone but people who are casting for the very first time or people who are familiar with casting and only need to make 5 copies, tops.

it was great. the resin casting and mold making were of great quality and worked excellent but i was a bit upset to find that one of the containers for the plasti paste were had spilled in the box when i got it and it got all over my hands when i picked it up. its wast a very pleasant experience but at least not a lot of it spilled and i was able to cast a nice mask for an art piece.

The price of this product compared to similar, competitive alternatives is:

A fantastic deal

Bottom LineYes, I would recommend this to a friend

Merchant response: Blick attempts to send out every order free from damage or defect. However, these types of issues do arise occasionally. We apologize for this. Customers who receive damaged or defective items should contact our Customer Care Center via email or by calling (800) 723-2787 and we will work with you to rectify the situation.

The instructions are amazingly complete - you will have no doubts about what you need to do. Be certain to understand that this kit is for a small project. The stuff is amazing, though don't plan on casting anything other than a small bit.I bought extra Rebound 25 and tried to stretch the Mother by using a thin coat and then reinforcing it with GRF concrete and it worked fine. Wish I could afford to do more projects with this wonderful product.

Looking forward to playing with the rest of the kit, so far only used the Plasti-Paste II to make some mother molds for which I had already made the latex mold of other stuff.

I like it quite well. It doesn't smell much and is straightforward to measure, mix and apply. It's not so smooth though (I think i need to adjust my technique). What's happening to me is that it's so sticky it clings to my applicator stick as I smear it on and creates these little merangue-ish cowlicks all over. When cured these become quite prickly to the touch. I am going to try letting it set for a little while and then smoothing/pushing these down while it is still a little malleable. I am hopeful that this will make handling the cured mother mold manageable with bare hands.

Overall the Plasti-Paste is a pretty convenient product to use and much less expensive than some other options I looked at.

It's hard for me to say how good a deal this kit is since the kit does not say if the product sizes are the same as what you get buying individual parts of it so I have not priced it against buying the individual components. Some components don't seem to be available through Blick outside of the kit at all (what's up with that, Dick Blick?) making it harder.

Main complaint is that they don't sell all the parts on their own (which is more of a store issue than a product issue, I admit, which is why I didn't mark it down any for that) so I ended up with some casting material I don't care about in just to get the Sonite Wax and the Thickener.

I use this resin and RTV to make military models in HO / OO scale. The starter kit is nice because you get both the resin and the RTV in the same set for a decent price. I don't use much at a time, so a small quantity of rubber and enough resin to cast up a few bits is really nice. The directions are clear, the product is very forgiving so a casual user like myself can get a good result. I have posted photos of both the process and my models on my Bunkermeister blog.

Blick is a great place to buy these products because they cut the price from retail and sometimes offer free shipping too. That's great also!

Prices, promotions, and availability may vary by store, catalog, and online.

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